The long-held fear of robots making humans obsolete is not a science fiction fantasy. One Oxford University study looked at 702 US-based jobs and concluded that 47% of those jobs could be handled by machines within “the next decade or two”.

Sophia is a social humanoid robot that has been making public appearances since 2016 to speak about machine learning and artificial intelligence. Though Sophia assures us that robots won’t steal our jobs, the truth is that many jobs are already being done with the help of robots.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Robotic process automation or RPA is an emerging technology solution for enterprises concerned with efficiency. This technology takes repetitive work out of human hands and assigns them to “bots” or software applications that do computer-based tasks.

A bot can do anything as simple as navigating through file storage or as complex as data entry using an interface meant for humans.

Business process automation, or giving machines the most repetitive jobs in the company, has been a focal point of software development for some time. Starting with low-quality data capture programs for “screen scraping” visual data in the early 1990s, large enterprises have been interested.

Though accepted as a money-saving technology by cutting down on manual data entry, the bots were low quality.

For years, this type of software was unreliable and inaccurate. The aim of recent bot development has focused on reliability so that RPA programs can successfully do human jobs at superhuman speeds.

The Human Benefit of RPA

There is an understandable response of workers to fear for their jobs in the face of automated technology, but panic is unnecessary.

Even Robot Sophia understands that bots who take over automated processes do more to help humans than to hurt them. The benefits of automation are not limited to efficiency and cost savings.

Bots also help the average worker to experience less fatigue at work.

When the chore of data entry becomes the computer’s job, companies see an increase in employee satisfaction. Though some improvements eliminate jobs, new positions are created that are more suited to the creativity and analytical prowess of the human mind.

A study of machine learning by leading global tech publication The Register prompted users to respond with positive feedback, “Automation takes the drudge out of everyone’s life.”

Automation vs. Human Results

The argument for human workers in repetitive jobs has always been accuracy. Humans have analytical abilities, whereas software is merely making educated guesses using computerized algorithms.

After decades of development though, RPA technology has caught up.

Automation Anywhere, a global RPA developer based out of California’s Silicon Valley, promises software robots that automate any process end-to-end and utilizes cognitive RPA bots that learn using real-time operational intelligence as they work.

In fact, RPA experts reassure the business world that RPA technology has reached the point where it increases accuracy over human performance. 70-80% of rules-based processes common to multinational corporations can be automated, while still ensuring 100% accuracy.

High quality bots that surpass human abilities in speed and accuracy will be the new norm.

Who Uses Automation?

Not every job can be done by a bot, but almost any company can get a machine to do certain tasks. The industries showing the most interest are sectors with data-heavy workflows like technology, financial services, and insurance companies.

Most corporations in these fields take advantage of RPA technology by consulting with software developers who build automation into their various company-wide computer systems.

The key to adoption of RPA at the user-level is to present the technology in a straightforward and utilitarian manner. Document management systems that utilize OCR, automated data capture and file sorting are an easy way for corporations to put the power of RPA into the hands of employees.

By partnering with Automation Anywhere and similar cutting-edge tech developers, Ataway brings automation technology to enterprises in a non-disruptive way.

Valuable staff time can be focused on tasks that require human problem-solving abilities instead of data sets. With a little help from bots, employee productivity and job satisfaction go up while time and costs go down.

Though bots can seem like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, the reality is that they have been perfected over the years to help companies work smarter.

RPA bots have a direct positive impact on two things that every company wants to improve—the bottom line and staff morale.

Learn more about how RPA tools from Ataway are helping enterprises save time and money.